Lake Mabprachan, East Pattaya, 7th April, 2011

3 months, 7 days – still sober.

Today I made some good progress on my novel, the first time I have worked on it for many days. Chapter six is working well and I am quite pleased with the way it is going. Recently I have been keen to keep my daily blog going, especially since I stared tweeting as I would really like to increase the numbers of readers. I now realise that long gaps in daily blogging can cause mass desertion of readers so I will do my best to maintain continuity. Unfortunately this has meant that my novel has had to take a back seat, but hopefully, from hereon in, I will try to keep both projects moving along on a daily basis as I am also keen to have my novel finished before I go to the UK in August.

American Politics

American Politics is a funny old game. Last year, just before the midterm elections, a democrat controlled congress (both houses) declined to pass into law the fiscal budget for 2010 as they feared that passing it would be detrimental to their chances in the mid-terms. In other words, they chickened out of approving their own budget in order to protect certain democratic held seats which were in danger of falling to Republicans. Now, six months later, the government is in dire danger of a ‘shut down’ because agreement cannot be reached between a now Republican led House, a Democratic led Senate, and the President. And whose fault is that? According to Obama – why, it’s the Republicans of course, who are just playing partisan politics! The words; Pot and Black spring to mind.

Then we have the Guantanamo Bay (GITMO) fiasco. Obama was elected on the back of firm promises to close GITMO within a year. His administration then went on to announce that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the chief architects of 9/11 would be tried in a civilian court in New York. This was in spite of the fact that the judges had spent years preparing the prosecution case which was originally to be brought before a military court at GITMO. Once Obama decided that it would be a civil, not a military trial, the whole prosecution case had to be started all over and all the previous work done had to be discarded, no doubt at great expense to the public exchequer.

We are now over two years down the road and there are no signs of GITMO ever being closed down. And now, after all the work put in by the civilian prosecutors to try the 9/11 culprit in New York, we get the amazing announcement that he will, after all be tried in a military court. So the whole process has to be started all over again for a third time – again at considerable cost to the American tax payers.

And why this about face? Obama claims that he had no choice as the Republicans put a clause in the budget bill forbidding terrorists at GITMO from being brought to the USA for trial. So once again, it’s the Republican’s fault, despite the fact that the Democrat controlled congress had two years to shut GITMO down and get the trial going in a civil court if that’s what they really wanted to do, notwithstanding the fact that if the original budget bill had been passed when the Democrats had an absolute majority, the Republicans would never have been able to sneak a ‘GITMO’ clause into the revised bill.

The real truth of the matter is that once Obama became President, he soon realised that he would have to eat his words about shutting down GITMO for all manner of reasons which I will not go into, (not that I personally agree with these reasons – but there again I am not privy to what Obama is privy to..) and that any attempts to have a 9/11 trial in New York would prove so unpopular and so expensive that it really was a non- starter.

But rather than say; ‘I was wrong’, he just tried to kid the American public that it was the Republicans’ fault. Don’t forget, Obama has the power of veto over any bill that passes his desk. If he didn’t like what the Republicans were doing, why didn’t he veto it?

I used to think that British partisan politics was bad, but now I’m not so sure that the bipartisanship in the USA isn’t infinitely worse. The whole country seems to be unconscionably polarised and is getting worse all the time. Gutter politics, where anything goes, seems to be the order of the day and while it is very clear that the public is sick and tired of all these shenanigans, very few politicians seem to be heeding this; their own heads are so far up their own arse holes that they see nothing but their own shit.

Birthday girl

Yesterday afternoon Noo and I went to an MK restaurant at Tesco Lotus in Pattaya to celebrate her birthday, in the way that she chose to do. Noo always orders a huge bowl of vegetables and another huge bowl of assorted mushrooms and leaves it to me to order the carnivore side of the meal. Noo is not a vegetarian but she does love her veggies and mushrooms. I love the dim sum, roast duck and kiew and pork and I also ordered an assortment of pork and beef and stuff squid to throw into the Suki pot.We ordered so much that we couldn’t finish it, so we doggy bagged some of the dim sum and salapow to eat later at home. Total cost 600 Baht!

After the meal, I decided to take Noo to a nearby gold shop and I bought her a 50 satang chain for her wrist. Apart from paying for her school fees and a few clothes from the market, this is the first money I have spent on her, outside of her fairly moderate allowance. I don’t need to tell you that it came as a complete surprise to her and she was ‘over the moon’. I have never seen such joy in the face of a Thai lady who I have just bought a present for. Usually I am lucky if I get even an acknowledgement – more often than not, just a scowl because I didn’t spend even more. She is such a fun-loving, joyful, grateful little creature and she looked so cute yesterday in her white shoes, white shorts and little white top.

A little angel, from God to me…..☺

Poetry through music

There is a little known love song, written and sung by a little known singer entitled ‘Everything I have’, by Clay Aitken. The more you listen to this song the more you will appreciate it. It has probably been written too late in the ever changing pop music cycle to become anything approaching a monster hit, but back in the 70’s I am sure it would have given some of Elton John’s best known love songs a run for their money.

The lyrics are not particularly original or inspirational, but they fit the music so well and carry a simple message to very great effect. The words and the music have certainly touched a chord with me. How about you?